True health isn’t just the absence of disease. Health means that your body is running as optimally as it can. When things are imbalanced, your body generously provides you with many tell-tale signs that are experienced as symptoms. Most people are not used to listening to these signs and recognizing them as the clear warning message that they are. The symptoms are often thought of as normal. Just because something is common does not mean that it is normal, and it certainly doesn’t mean that it is healthy. True health is symptom free. We are given drugs to cover up the symptoms, but they do nothing to address the underlying problem. People take pills to “fix” themselves, but the steps aren’t being taken to obtain true health.

For women, when things get out of whack, a loud and clear sign from the body is often shown through their menstrual cycle. Periods can become irregular, or stop all together. Reproductive disorders arise. Even PMS becomes more difficult. Most devastating is the rapid rise of infertility, which so many couples encounter. There is so much that can be done nutritionally to regulate your reproductive system and drastically increase your chances of conception.

The modern diet is not one that supports fertility and it doesn’t produce healthy children. You may be able to become pregnant, but will your child be free of asthma, allergies, eczema, learning difficulties or behavioral problems? These conditions are directly linked to the preconception health of the parents, and the prenatal diet of the mother.

Traditional cultures went to great lengths to see that couples in their child-bearing years were fed a highly nutritious diet that supported fertility. They knew that this was essential to the strength of their future tribe. Couples received foods high in many nutrients that are lacking in today’s diet. They knew that when parents were fed certain foods, their babies would have higher intellect and greater immunity. We now have the science that shows us exactly what it is about these foods that makes them superior for fertility, but traditional cultures gained this wisdom through generation after generation of experience. This invaluable wisdom was passed down to them and they held it as sacred. Today it is lost and as a result, each generation is sicker than the last.

With the industrial revolution came the widespread use of sugar and flour. The popularity of these products completely coincides with the rise of modern degenerative diseases such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmune diseases. These are diseases that were non-existent for our early ancestors. With the change in our diet, our jaws became narrower, our teeth crowded, we started getting cavities and our eyesight became poor.

Today our culture consumes processed foods, sick animals from factory farms and genetically modified fruits and vegetables laden with chemicals. The choices that you make during preconception, pregnancy and while breastfeeding not only affect you, but your child and even their children. Your nutrition today plays an important role in the health of future generations.